Economy-Nigeria - Despite the efforts by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to erase the use of paper certificate and replace it with electronic certificate only 30 per cent of the shareholders have complied, while five per cent of declared dividends in the past 10 years are unclaimed. Speaking in Lagos at a forum organized by the Capital Market Correspondent Association of Nigeria held at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday, the managing director of First Registrar, Bayo Olugbemi lamented that two years after the exercise was flagged off, only 30 per cent of shareholders have complied.

Although he refused to give the figures, Daily Trust gathered that over N400 billion dividends have been declared by companies listed in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in the past 10 years. Of the amount, the unclaimed dividends are not more than N20 billion. This represents about five per cent of over N400 billion.

He said the Unclaimed Dividends Trust Bill initiated by SEC and currently before the National Assembly did not take cognizance of the shareholders emphasising that the bill if eventually passed may not address the problem

E-dividend payment system requires that shareholders submit their bank' details to the registrars to enable them process their dividends. Once the dividends are paid, the shareholders would be alerted within 24 hours.

To solve the problem, SEC said it advised shareholders to subscribe to electronic dividend payment system. What you need to do as a shareholder is to collect a e-dividend form from your registrar.

SEC had accused registrars of failure to fully adopt electronic processing technologies which has caused untold hardship for investors in the Nigerian capital market, as it has led to high incidence of delay, irregularities while also encouraging fraud. Over time, investors' complaints include loss of share certificates, delay in receipt of dividend warrants, notice of meetings and companies annual report.

But Olugbemi said though the registrars cannot be totally absolved of the blame, regulators, cost of infrastructures also contributed to the problem.

He said for instance many investors have changed their addresses, and are unable to get their dividend warrants.

"Secondly, some investors are not ready to claim their dividends because they are too small. Some are saying that they cannot claim dividends of N10 or N20.

Kayode Ekundayo

Daily Trust/10/03/2011